1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for recording text narratives and images about events and, more particularly, to systems and methods for organizing the recorded text narratives and images using tags that are defined with respect to characters depicted in the text narratives and images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Tags have become a popular tool for organizing content. A tag is a keyword that is defined by the user for classifying the content. A user may define multiple tags for an object. Tags are often associated with web pages or images.
One major feature of tags is that it is user-defined. As a result, objects that cannot be parsed by a computer and automatically indexed, like images, can be indexed in accordance with user-defined tags. In addition, unlike hierarchical categorization schemes or computer generated indexing schemes, classification by tags can be highly personalized.
One example application of tags for organizing images is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2006/0064639. In this example, images are organized by tagging them with informative keywords defined by the user and grouping images together into conceptual photo albums. A selected group of images is then published into a photo book that is made available over the Internet or published as individual image prints.
A tag may be defined as public or private. A public tag is shared with other users and is linked with other users who have used the same tag, so that all objects that are associated this tag may be accessed through this tag. The sharing of public tags has been a major reason behind the expansive use of tags. Some of the popular web services that provide for public sharing of user-defined tags include Technorati™, del.icio.us, and Flickr™. A private tag, on the other hand, is not shared with other users. Only the user who created the private tag may use it to access the objects associated with private tag. Private tags are useful in allowing a user to organize information in accordance with his or her personalized classification scheme.
One limitation of tags is that different users will use different tags to describe the same item, because no rules exist to standardize the tags people will use. In essence, tagging creates an inherently ambiguous system. For example, objects associated with the tag “apple” may include web pages and images relating to fruits or web pages and images relating to the computer company. Similarly, objects associated with the tag “windows” may include web pages and images relating to openings provided in structures or web pages and images relating to a computer operating system.